Penning, J. and C. Smidt. 2002. Evangelicalism: The Next Generation. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic.
In Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation, James Davison Hunter provides a pessimistic outlook on the future of conservative Protestantism. Fifteen years later, Penning and Smidt replicate Hunter’s classic study in order to see how the new generation of college Evangelicals compares to the early-1980s generation in Hunter’s study. They find that while some secularizing has occurred, the religious beliefs, practices, values, and political attitudes of college Evangelicals have not changed much. These findings contradict Hunter’s findings that college Evangelicals would fall under the weight of modernity’s pressures. This enduring Protestant identity compels the authors to offer an outlook on conservative Protestantism that is less pessimistic than Hunter’s.
